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There's a new leak in the ceiling over the shower.
Not that anyone but Athelstan would notice that it's new when there are other leaks surrounding it, but he's been keeping track of them since he moved in two months ago. There were three in total then, and despite the landlord's weekly reassurances that he'd "be there Friday morning to deal with it," the number of leaks has only increased. Athelstan counts them again as he savors the last few seconds of hot water - eight now. It's probably time to stop hoping for a fix and start hoping that he's not in the shower stall when the person living the next floor up comes crashing down into their bathroom.
Athelstan turns the water off and shakes his head, trying to clear his mind of complaints. He considers himself fortunate, after all. He has a graduate degree, a full-time teaching job, and an apartment with only one roommate (who's only just a tad sketchy) and a laundry room in the basement of the building. Occasionally he's able to donate to the children's home he lived in until he turned eighteen. Many of his friends from university are still searching for work wherever they can find it and living in less than ideal situations (not that Rollo is the ideal roommate - he's barely tolerable on a good day). He thinks he's doing okay.
Still, he thinks as he tiptoes back to his bedroom to avoid waking Rollo up (again, and it is absolutely not Athelstan's fault that the floorboards in the hallway creak so much), it's not exactly the oasis he imagined his first living situation after years of dormitories and house shares with too many other tenants. The apartment building is across the street from a long city block filled with dive bars, sex shops, and low-light clubs that make the whole neighborhood shake every night from 9 to 2. He hasn't had an uninterrupted night's sleep since moving in, only managing to catch a few hours here and there in between car horns blaring, drunken arguments, and screeching laughter. He mentioned the noise level to Rollo once, who grinned and laughed at him a little meanly and told him he'd get used to it eventually. Athelstan's pretty sure he won't, but he doesn't bother arguing.
He's dragging his pants up over his hips when someone starts banging on their front door. He looks at the clock across his room - it's just after six in the morning, and he hears the couple whose bedroom is on the other side of his wake up and start groaning about the noise. It's only a matter of time before they start banging on the wall. Since Athelstan really would prefer not being on the receiving end of another noise complaint (which have all been Rollo's fault, thanks), he doesn't bother reaching for a shirt before he rushes out to see who's at their door. As he twists the deadbolt and swings the door open, he hears Rollo come out of his room and say, "Ah, shit, I totally forgot," but by then Athelstan is face to face with a tall, muscular man who looks as startled by the sight of Athelstan as Athelstan is by him.
Behind him, Athelstan hears Rollo yawn and scratch at bare skin. "Ragnar, my roommate Athelstan. Athelstan, my brother Ragnar."
A slow grin spreads across Ragnar's face. Athelstan is suddenly and overwhelmingly aware of the fact that a) he is still shirtless, and b) Ragnar is…well, he's gorgeous. And tall. And physically imposing. Athelstan's never felt this immediate an attraction to another person before - he's positively dizzy with it, and he knows he has to go somewhere else before he reaches forward to find out if Ragnar's arms are as firm as they look.
"Stop smiling like that, idiot," Rollo says. "Where's Gyda? I forgot I was watching her today."
"She's trying to convince the dog to come up the stairs," says Ragnar, still staring at Athelstan with eerie blue eyes. "It's so nice to meet you. Rollo didn't tell me you were -"
"Stop it."
A rush of warmth runs up Athelstan's spine. He stammers something - hopefully a hello, but who knows - and makes a quick retreat back into the hallway and then his room. He lets out a gasp as he closes the door and leans against it. He presses an ear to the wood, curious to know if either Ragnar or Rollo will say anything about what just happened, but the brothers' conversation is a low hum of indistinguishable noise through the barrier. Another voice, younger and higher-pitched, joins them, and then a dog barks as the front door shuts.
Athelstan breathes out a sigh of relief. He glances at the clock again and realizes that he's going to be late for the staff meeting if he doesn't leave in the next three minutes. He scrambles to find a clean shirt and resolves to put Ragnar out of his mind.
***
Of course Athelstan can barely think of anything else the whole day, and since high schoolers have the uncanny ability to sense even the slightest amount of distraction in a teacher, his students don't think of anything else either. By the end of his third period class, Athelstan's been teased so much that he feels like his head is going to explode from the sheer amount of blood flushing his cheeks. At lunch, one of the other teachers asks him if he's sick and needs to go home, and it's only the very last remnant of his pride that keeps him from bursting into tears and taking her up on her offer to sub the rest of his classes.
So if he's a little more panicked by the unexpected aroma of spices emanating from the apartment when he gets home that evening than he maybe should be, Athelstan honestly doesn't think he can be blamed.
"Rollo! I thought we talked about you never cooking anything ever again," he calls as he hurries to open the door.
But Athelstan's luck being what it is, Ragnar's sitting at the small kitchen table, and a petite woman with intricately braided blonde hair is standing at the stove, stirring something in one of the few pots Athelstan owns. Rollo is nowhere to be seen, and the little girl he'd briefly met this morning as he flew out the door is also absent. Athelstan thinks he should say something, but Ragnar grins at him like he did this morning, and he's suddenly unsure of whether he should just flee into his room or out of the country entirely.
"Lagertha, my love," Ragnar says, "this is Athelstan, Rollo's roommate."
The woman at the stove turns and fixes him with an assessing stare. She doesn't smile at him. She doesn't even blink, and Athelstan almost buckles under the same unexpected rush of attraction for her as he did for Ragnar barely twelve hours ago.
This is terrible, he thinks, despairing. I don't even understand what's happening.
"I made a stew," Lagertha says in lieu of a greeting. She turns back to the stove. Athelstan feels a little like his soul has been weighed and judged and he's not sure what she's found, but he really hopes she likes whatever it is. "There should be some left after tonight for your lunches this week. It's the least we can do."
"Um," he says. He glances at Ragnar, who's still smiling at him. "Not that I'm not grateful, but...why?"
"For having to live with Rollo," she replies. "We did that once. It was awful."
An involuntary hysterical giggle works its way out of Athelstan's throat. He can only see Lagertha's face in partial profile, but it's enough to show the corner of her mouth quirking upwards. Ragnar laughs more freely and pulls out one of the chairs from under the table.
"Come sit," he says, and Athelstan doesn't even hesitate to obey.
***
Between preparing lessons, grading papers and quizzes, and occasionally meeting up with college friends still living in the area, Athelstan doesn't have a lot of free time, so it's a little surprising that he manages to see Ragnar and Lagertha as much as he does after that night. They claim that they're over at the apartment more often to let Bjorn and Gyda spend time with their beloved uncle, but the bemused expression on Rollo's face when they say it tells Athelstan otherwise. He starts to look forward to it, though, and not just because both Lagertha and Ragnar seem to be fattening him up with the delicious food they're constantly serving him.
It starts, he thinks, with movie nights.
Athelstan loves watching movies. His birthday and Christmas gifts from the children's home director were always theater vouchers, and he remembers recounting every detail of every film he got to see to the other children way past lights out. He's been building his DVD collection since he got his first job in college and could afford to buy one or two from the discount bin once in a while - it's still small, but his favorites are all there. He likes to talk about his favorites with anyone who will listen, and so when Lagertha comments on the shelves set up near the television in the living room after dinner one night, he goes off on a slight tangent that leaves her, Ragnar, and Rollo looking at him like he's sprouted antlers.
"What? Do I have sauce on my chin?" he asks.
"No," Lagertha says. Rollo looks like he's about to say something, but she whacks her fork against his knuckles. He yelps and glares at her, but she turns her attention fully to Athelstan. "Keep talking."
The following night, Ragnar and Lagertha arrive with takeout and a six-pack. Bjorn and Gyda are right behind, but before Athelstan can greet them, Rollo shoos them back into the hallway and wanders out after them, rolling his eyes as he shuts the door. It's been a long, frustrating day, and all Athelstan wants is to go to sleep, but Lagertha is already rummaging through his DVDs while Ragnar searches through their cupboards for paper plates.
"Let's watch this one," Lagertha says. She's picked out the original Sabrina. Athelstan sighs but helps her set it up in the DVD player anyway.
He falls asleep not too long after Sabrina leaves for Paris. He's sitting between them on the couch, full of delicious curry and rice, and they're both so warm and comfortable that he can't help but settle against the cushions and drift off. When he wakes a little while later, they've curled closer around him - Ragnar's arm is tight around his shoulders, Lagertha's fingers card gently through his hair, and everything feels so incredibly wonderful that he can't even bring himself to break the spell and ask them what the hell is going on. He drifts off again.
When his alarm goes off in the morning, he's alone in his bed, and he wonders if he dreamed the whole thing.
***
Whatever it is that's going on, it only intensifies from there.
"They're, you know," Athelstan starts to say, then stops.
"They're what?" Rollo grunts.
"Well. They're happy together, right?"
Rollo groans and gets up from the table. "I'm not talking to you about my brother and his wife and them flirting with you, jesus."
Athelstan blushes. "They're not flirting with me!"
Rollo shoots him a pitying look over his shoulder before he disappears into his room.
The thing is, Athelstan's been trying to avoid calling it flirting since the first movie night, but that's sort of exactly what they're doing. Not only have movies and takeout become a weekly occurrence, but they've started buying him things and taking him out places whenever they have the time. Ragnar even fixed the ceiling in the shower so it doesn't leak anymore. There's also the touching and the random moments of cuddling, even out in public, and the way both of them look at him, well.
Oh lord, he thinks. They're dating me.
He's still sitting at the table an hour later, utterly overwhelmed by his entire life, when Rollo reemerges from his room with an envelope in his hand.
"Figured it out, did you?" Rollo asks.
Athelstan nods.
"Right. Good, I guess." He clears his throat. "Well, good for you. Listen, I have an errand to run across town. Can you take this to Lagertha? She should be at the shop right now."
"Uh, sure," Athelstan says, though the thought of facing Lagertha right now is...daunting. "I've never been there before. Where is it, exactly?"
The address Rollo gives him is only half a block from their apartment building. As he stands outside the shop, he kicks himself a little for never asking what Ragnar and Lagertha do for a living. If he had, maybe he would have been more prepared to be standing outside a sex shop. He's never going to get rid of the blush in his cheeks, he thinks.
A young man, dressed in glittery clothes that are really inappropriate for the cool weather they're having, stops and looks between Athelstan and the shopfront briefly.
"You judging or just shy, sugar?" he asks.
Athelstan blinks and says, "I just realized that I'm dating a married couple today."
The man pats his shoulder. "I've been there, dude," he says as he continues walking on. "It's going to be okay."
Athelstan takes a deep breath and then walks into the shop.
Despite having lived in this neighborhood for several months now, Athelstan has never gone inside one. He's never had reason to, really - his relationships in college weren't overly adventurous, and he never personally felt the need to explore, or whatever it is more sexually active people do. The interior of the store is a lot more organized than he thought it would be, though he should know better than to expect movies to reflect real life accurately by now.
At the other end of the room, Lagertha is sitting on a stool behind a counter, staring at him with a hint of a smile on her lips. He swallows against a sudden lump in his throat and moves quickly through the aisles until he reaches the counter. There's another person standing there as well, an older woman who does a double-take at the sight of him.
"Well," the woman says, "who is this delicious morsel?"
"Not yours," Lagertha says.
"Surely that's for him to decide."
Athelstan's not entirely sure what's happening here, but the predatory glint in the stranger's eye worries him. Lagertha looks at him like that sometimes, though with her it's warm and welcoming. This just makes him want to run away and hide in a corner somewhere.
"I have something for you from Rollo," he says. His voice cracks at the end, and he looks away from both women as he thrusts the envelope at Lagertha, who hums and takes it from him.
"You should sit down," she says, so he settles himself down on the floor and closes his eyes and breathes.
He hears the other woman huff and chuckle at something, and then there are footsteps going away from him. Athelstan blinks. Lagertha's crouching down next to him, elbow resting on one knee and chin cradled in the palm of her hand. She's smiling, bigger and more open than before, and something in his chest unfurls and relaxes.
"Rollo's note tells me you've had a rough day," Lagertha says. He frowns at her. "Actually what it says is, Sit him down and tell him what the fuck you and Ragnar want, or I'm kidnapping the kids and running away with them."
Athelstan clears his throat. "You, ah. I think you've been. Um."
Soft lips pressing against his throw him completely off his train of thought. The kiss is brief, too quick for his liking, and he chases after another one when Lagertha pulls away from him. She laughs and tugs at his curls, and he manages to steal a kiss before she stands and motions for him to get up off the floor as well.
"Come over to ours for dinner tonight," she says. "Ragnar's dropping Bjorn and Gyda at yours right now. We'll be able to talk more there."
The tone in her voice makes him feel steadier than he has all day. He nods and offers her a smile. "Okay," he says, and she kisses him again.